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  • S2 E1: With... Jenny Mitchell - Welcome back to Behind the Glass with this early-release first episode of series 2 ! Sam and new co-host Connie talk to prize-winning poet Jenny Mitchell...
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Monday, February 17, 2025

Brontë sideburns

On Monday, February 17, 2025 at 7:47 am by Cristina in , , , ,    No comments
Nothing much on the Brontë news today apart from Jacob Elordi's sideburns. Daily Mail features another actor who played a Brontë character: Toby Stephens, who also wore sideburns and who
won over fans as Jane Eyre's lover Mr Rochester (Hannah McDonald)
AnneBrontë.org recalls the re-enactment of Charlotte Brontë's wedding back in 2004. The man playing Arthur Bells Nicholls also wore sideburns.
12:30 am by M. in ,    No comments

This weekend on Radio 4 Extra happened to be the All Request Weekend:
Today the station is broadcasting favourite programmes selected by listeners. Among them, Dithering Heights, a black comedy about a Brontë heritage weekend run in a recently closed brothel.

February 17, 07:30, 12:30, 18:30
February 18 02:30
Dithering Heights

**** This programme was suggested by Mandy Poulton as part of BBC Radio 4 Extra’s All Request Weekend ****

Theatre impresario Jimmy Trotter is down on his luck, so he decides to run courses for lady culture vultures in an old house he's rented on the Yorkshire Moors
But when the wrong party turns up, strange things start to happen.
The wind howls, Mrs Rochester howls, and when he finds that he has lost his trousers, even the Bishop of Skipton howls...

Comedy drama written by Ken Whitmore.

Jimmy Trotter .... Aubrey Woods
Oswald .... Nigel Anthony
PC Fanshaw .... Sam Kelly
Mrs Ablett .... Meg Johnson
Jane .... Joanne Zorian
Dr Malloy .... Bonnie Hurren
Arthur Tattersall .... Ronald Baddiley
Dr Skull .... Ronald Herdman
Mrs Tattersall .... Heather Stoney

Director: Alfred Bradley

First broadcast in Saturday Night Theatre on BBC Radio 4 in September 1985.

Sunday, February 16, 2025

Vogue features Jacob Elordi at the Berlinale International Film Festival:
Out on the wily, windy moors—or, just the snowy Berlinale International Film Festival—Jacob Elordi has debuted another hair transformation. Gone is the impressively bushy beard that the Saltburn actor sported at the Marrakech International Film Festival in Morocco back in December: now, it’s all about the 17th century mutton chops. (...)
Elordi showcased a serious set of sideburns, likely grown for his next part as the brooding anti-hero Heathcliff in director Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights adaptation. His mutton chops reach down to the curve of his jaw, and the rest of his dark hair is kept long and tousled. (...)
As production reportedly continues, Jacob Elordi looks every bit of the Yorkshire Moors man. (Anna Cafolla)
Congratulations to the Trio Brontë. As published in The Strad:
The piano trio category finals of the 12th Franz Schubert and Modern Music International Chamber Music Competition took place on 12 February at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Graz, Austria. The trios performed either Franz Schubert’s Piano Trio no.1 in B-flat major D.898 or his Piano Trio no.2 in E-flat major D.929, as well as a contemporary work written after 1978 of the trio’s choice.
The Trio Brontë won the €13,500 first prize, which includes career consulting and guidance. The group also won the special prize for CD Production & Promotion. This prize goes to only one of the ensembles in the entire competition, which also includes piano duos and piano-voice duos.

Lima News reviews Catherine the Ghost by Kathe Koja:

Cathy Earnshaw. Catherine Linton. Mother. Daughter. They never saw each other alive. In Catherine the Ghost these two young women confront loss, captivity, and the dark edge of eternity itself, to claim their full existence and share their power. With hauntings that escape the page and passion that bleeds them red, Koja crafts a tale that transcends the material plane as an eerie comfort that ghosts keep loving long past the grave. This modern gothic punk remix of Emily Brontë’s classic “Wuthering Heights” is a ghost story told from the point of view of Catherine Earnshaw’s restless spirit from beyond the grave.
Air Mail News quotes the actress Aimee Lou Wood saying:

“I didn’t want to be an actor when I was younger,” says Aimee Lou Wood. “I wanted to be a writer, like Emily Brontë.” (Jeanne Malle)
The Washington Post explores novels using a contemporary trope, the divorce plot: 
“Divorce can be a journey in itself, not unlike its literary predecessor and contemporary companion, the marriage plot,” muses journalist Haley Mlotek in the latest entry in this burgeoning canon, “No Fault: A Memoir of Romance and Divorce.” She is the only one in her cohort to explicitly conceive of her story as an homage to an older form, the marriage plot, though she is not alone in seeking to subvert the tropes of the traditional narrative. “No Fault” is a nonlinear rebuke to the tidy ordering of the classics, which start with a meet-cute and conclude with a wedding. “Reader, I married him,” is the famed first line of the last chapter of Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre.” (Becca Rothfeld)
Daily Bruin talks about a new play written and performed by UCLA students:
“Good Tidings,” a UCLA alumnus-written play presented by Los Angeles Theatre Initiative, is hosting its three LA previews Feb. 15 and Feb. 16 at Thymele Arts: Shirley Dawn Studio in East Hollywood. The play, which draws from inspirations such as “Jane Eyre” and “Wuthering Heights,” is an original work featuring students from both UCLA and Loyola Marymount University and tells the story of a commune that must perform a ritual to find a new spiritual leader after its previous medium dies. (Bettina Wu)
The Denver Gazette talks about the Grapefruit Lab's Jane Eyre production economy plan:
Grapefruit Lab has the freedom to perform whenever it has the resources to perform, then retrench until it has enough resources to perform again. From Jan. 17-Feb. 2, it remounted “Jane/Eyre,” a queer adaptation of the classic goth novel set to live music by local indie-rock icons Teacup Gorilla and Dameon Merkl.
The Lab paid $2,400 to rent Buntport Theater’s warehouse space for six weeks and sold about 375 tickets for its eight performances. The company has adopted the “pay what you feel like paying” model, and audiences offered up about  $6,800 in revenue, or about $18-$20 each. “Our goal is to just break even,” said Suzanne. And with private donations, they just about did.
The company, founded in 2009, has never received grant or government money, and its two leaders don’t pay themselves. They did pay everyone involved with “Jane/Eyre,” which came to about $7,000. Musician parents Dan Eisenstat and Sondra Eby didn’t want to be paid, so the company covered their child-care costs instead. (John Moore)
Times Now News lists books your teachers forced you to read but now you thank them for:
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
For many students, 'Wuthering Heights' was simply an overly dramatic love story. But in reality, it’s a novel about obsession, revenge, and the destructive nature of passion. Heathcliff and Catherine’s turbulent relationship isn’t just romance—it’s a study of human flaws, unfulfilled desires, and how love can turn into something dark and consuming. The novel’s emotional complexity makes it a fascinating reread as an adult, where its themes take on new layers of meaning. (Girish Shukla)
Excelsior (México) lists Gothic novels:
Cumbres Borrascosas (1847) – Emily Brontë
En los últimos años, las hermanas Brontë han cobrado gran relevancia en el mundo literario. Si bien esta obra es la más famosa (y única) de Emily, durante mucho tiempo estuvo opacada por el trabajo de Jane Austen. Hoy, Cumbres Borrascosas es un referente del género gótico. En esta historia se narra un amor que trasciende el tiempo de forma sobrenatural, pero no así los prejuicios que rigen la sociedad. (Diana Oliva) (Translation)
A bit of belated Valentine's publications: Readings for Valentine's Day in Crónica (México):
Cumbres Borrascosas de Emily Brontë Un clásico de la literatura inglesa que nos sumerge en una historia de amor apasionada, tormentosa y llena de venganza entre Heathcliff y Catherine. Su relación es destructiva pero innegablemente intensa, con un amor que desafía el tiempo y la muerte. (Samantha Ivana Lamas Ramírez) (Translation)
Also in Informador (México), Closer (France). The Indian Express goes for the enduring appeal of romance novels:
In the mid-19th Century, authors such as Charlotte Brontë and Ann Radcliffe made the sub-genre of gothic romance popular – these typically had dark, foreboding settings with mysterious male leads who had a “softer side” for the plucky, but virtuous, heroine. (Arushi Bhaskar)
Forbes (Ecuador) presents Natalia Salazar,  head of innovative finance at ICLEI (International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives) and Brontëite:
Disfrutaba de la lectura, especialmente la relacionada con literatura medieval. Recuerda haber leído varias veces Cumbres Borrascosas, porque le envolvía la forma en que estaba escrita y como describía la naturaleza humana. (María Judith Rosales Andrade) (Translation)

The House of Brontë vindicates Branwell Brontë. 

2:48 am by M. in ,    No comments
A new scholarly book with Brontë-related material:
Sarah E. Maier
Palgrave MacMillan
ISBN: 978-3-031-47295-4

Neo-Victorian Young Adult Narratives examines the neo-Victorian themes and motifs currently appearing in young adult fiction-specifically addressing the themes of authorship, sexuality, and criminality in the context of the Victorian age in British and American cultures. This book explicates the complicated relationship between the Victorian past and the turn to Victorian modes of thought on literature, history, and morality. Additionally, Sarah E. Maier aims to determine if the appeal of neo-Victorian young adult fiction rests in or resists nostalgia, parody, and revision. Given the overwhelming prevalence of the Victorian in the young adult genres of biofiction, juvenile writings, gothic, sensation, mystery, and crime fiction, there is much to investigate in terms of the friction between the past and the present.
The book includes the chapters:
Sarah E. Maier
pp 83–107

Neo-Victorian young adult biofictions like The Glass Town Game (2017) by Catherynne Valente and Worlds of Ink and Shadow (2016) by Lena Coakley explore the fascinating Brontë family in fiction that collapses the space between their actual lives in Howarth and their imaginative lives in their juvenilia worlds. Two recent graphic novels—Charlotte Brontë Before Jane Eyre (2009) by Glynnis Fawkes and Glass Town: The Imaginary World of the Brontës by Isabel Greenberg (2020)—further explore the conflation of juvenilian narratives with biographical suppositions. These biofictions enact a double perspective wherein the representation of the Brontës and their worlds inspires the young adult reader to consider their contemporary environment and the drive to create worlds that provide escape.

Sarah E. Maier
ISBN: pp 109–135

There is a paradoxical contrast between the quiet life of Emily Brontë and her passionate fiction offers no complete picture of the young woman in spite of the myriad biographies, legends, and myths about her life or the crushing number of critical responses to her fictions. Into this gap, neo-Victorian (re)visionings of and a (re)voicing of personal history allow for a reconsideration of Emily Brontë’s interests. To that end, Chap. 5, “The Odd(est) Brontë: Portrait(s) of Emily as a Young Author,” considers Always Emily (2014) by Michaela MacColl and The World Within: A Novel of Emily Brontë (2015) by Jane Eagland. Both biofictional narratives reconstruct an image of Brontë despite the scant archival evidence because, like adult readers, adolescents are interested in the who and why of writers’ lives; in addition, readers seek a greater insight into the famous characters that such an author may have invented in their texts.

Saturday, February 15, 2025

Saturday, February 15, 2025 10:56 am by Cristina in , , , , ,    No comments

Coinciding with Valentine's Day and so exactly a year before its premiere, Warner Bros has released the first image of Emerald Fennell's Wuthering Heights. There are many sites sharing it. AV Club states that 'This isn't your English teacher's Wuthering Heights'.

The fact that one could confuse the new photo’s violent eroticism for cannibalism is likely intentional. We already knew that the tone of this film was likely to be capital-E Edgy. “There’s a scene in Wuthering Heights after Cathy dies when Heathcliff digs down to her coffin and tries to get to her. It’s very clear what he’s intending to do, which is to, at the very least touch her, kiss her. So it’s part of the Gothic tradition that sex and death are kind of intertwined,” the director previously told Time of her inspiration for a similar scene in Saltburn, months before Wuthering Heights was announced. It’s unclear how she’ll differentiate her actual Wuthering Heights from its more modern copy (it doesn’t help that Jacob Elordi stars in both), but we all knew she wasn’t going to do it by dialing back the sick-and-twisted factor.
Warner Bros. didn’t provide any new info to go with the image, but it kind of says it all already. What we do know as of this writing is that the film stars Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie as tragic lovers Healthcliff and Catherine respectively, with Shazad Latif, Hong Chau, and Alison Oliver rounding out the cast. You may want to grab your copy of the Emily Brontë classic from the bookstore before the movie tie-in versions pop up. Or wait! We won’t judge (too hard). (Emma Keates)
Vulture starts the countdown:
February 14, 2025: You have exactly one year to prepare yourself. Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights adaptation is set to release on February 14, 2026. To celebrate what’s coming next Valentine’s Day, Warner Bros. has handed us a very zoomed-in first-look image of a finger and some blades of grass in a mouth. Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie are starring as Heathcliff and Catherine, and the full cast also includes Shazad Latif, Hong Chau, and Alison Oliver. Whose finger is it anyway? (Jason P. Frank)
JoBlo is calling all 'botanophiliacs'.
Anyone looking to spice up their Valentine’s Day “viewing material” might want to look at the first image from Emerald Fennell’s upcoming adaptation of Wuthering Heights. The simple yet sensual image shows a close-up of someone’s mouth with blades of green grass caught between extended fingers. While you could be wondering, “What’s so sexy about grass?” let me remind you that botanophilia, referring to a sexual attraction to plants, exists. Imagine how many gardeners see this image and suddenly need to excuse themselves for an extended bathroom break. You know it in your heart to be true. (Steve Seigh)
World of Reel has lots of questions.
Simple yet sensual is what Fennell’s going for here as we see a close-up of someone’s mouth with blades of green grass caught between extended fingers. Earlier in the week, the film started production in the UK.
No coincidence, Warner Bros has set up a Valentine’s 2026 release for “Wuthering Heights.” Although that date doesn’t spell awards, don’t be surprised the film gets a very short awards qualifying run in late 2025.
We don’t know if Fennell’s version of “Wuthering Heights” is set in the present day, or maintains the novel’s 17th Century English setting. What seems to be the lure here, and the reason why Warner Bros acquired it for $80M, is Fennell — she ‘a coming off having directed “Promising Young Woman” and “Saltburn.” (Jordan Ruimy)
Wow, who knew Wuthering Heights was actually set in the 1600s!

ScreenRant makes the deduction that the image implies that 'The Movie Will Embrace Modern Sensuality' (TM).
Warner Bros. has now released the first official image from Wuthering Heights adaptation. The sensual still frame is an extreme closeup of fingers tangled up with grass, one of which is inside an open mouth. It is unclear if the fingers belong to the person whose mouth is shown or another character, though the angle of the hand seems to imply that they are one and the same.
With this image, it already seems as though Wuthering Heights will take on the tone of Emerald Fennell's Saltburn rather than a more traditional, staid adaptation of the material. Her 2023 black comedy thriller, which followed a young man (Barry Keoghan) seducing, manipulating, and murdering his way through the rich family of his college friend (Elordi), was full of sensual moments like the one captured in this still frame, which promises a more modern take on the period-set drama. (Brennan Klein)

Well now onto other things, although there's one more reference to Wuthering Heights, the novel. February 22 is Ireland Reads Day and so Business Post has asked several 'authors and bookworms' to share their favourite reads.
Rita Ann Higgins, poet and playwright
The book that changed my life
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. I started reading it when I was 22 and it was one of the first books I had ever read. I loved that I could see what was written in every page. Imagery became very important to me as a reader. I needed to be able to see what the words said. (Gillian Nelis)
Wall Street Journal has selected the 'Five Best: Classics Retold' and one of them is
Wide Sargasso Sea
By Jean Rhys (1966)
5. Readers of Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre” will remember that Rochester’s first wife, Bertha, lives locked in the attic of Thornfield Hall. In Jean Rhys’s “Wide Sargasso Sea,” Rochester is never mentioned by name; most of the story unfolds in the years long before Jane arrives. We come to see Bertha (who goes by her middle name, Antoinette) as a three-dimensional character whose instability and violence are a response to her own parents’ mental illnesses, her abandonment as a child and her forced marriage to Rochester. It would be an oversimplification to describe Antoinette as sympathetic, but even the parts of “Wide Sargasso Sea” told from Rochester’s perspective paint a complex portrait of a woman isolated, alone and ignored. Rhys imagines that Antoinette’s early life wasn’t so different from Jane’s. Both girls were treated cruelly, left in the care of violent guardians and spent their childhoods longing to feel safe. While Jane’s terror and loneliness give way to a life of modest stability once she arrives at Thornfield Hall, the opposite is true for Antoinette. (Amanda Parrish Morgan)
Official London Theatre interviews actress Charlie Russell.
2. My West End idol is…
Monica Dolan. I saw her play Kate in The Taming Of The Shrew in Barrow-in-Furness as a child, and in the curtain call I could have sworn she smiled at me. Later I saw her play Jane in Jane Eyre – and I still have the programmes for both plays in a box under my bed! Watching her on stage and screen is always exciting and mesmerising. (Jennifer Dickson-Purdy)
She was certainly memorable in Jane Eyre.

America Magazine features Emily Dickinson.
Dickinson, like many girls of her social class, spent a year away from her home in Amherst, Mass., boarding at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley, Mass. Its principal, Mary Lyon, had the students divide themselves into three categories: those who believed they were saved, those who had hope of such, and those who had no hope. (In Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë satirizes this high-minded, Calvinist brutality in the figure of St. John Rivers.) (Jayme Stayer, S.J.)

The Brontë Sisters YouTube channel explores "the fascinating story of William Weightman and the Valentine’s cards he sent to the Brontë sisters."

1:33 am by M. in , ,    No comments
More Brontë scholar work:
Rizwan Safdar,Khadija,Shah Fahad,Noureen Waqar
Vol. 8 No. 1 (2025): Journal of Applied Linguistics and TESOL (JALT)

This study aims at investigating the Foucauldian shades of power and resistance through the test case of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. It contemplates the dynamic mechanism of power and resistance as both these are the intimate terms in the work of Foucault working in a social relation. Power is seen everywhere in society, and its mechanism can only be replaced or changed through the process of resistance. Foucault’s power does not have a negative connotation to exercise against someone to take the life of people. His power has resistance in itself. This study emphasizes on the resistance of Jane Eyre in Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. Despite her nonconformist thinking, actions, and attitude, and bold character, she seems to resist the power of patriarchy and religion. She finally gets success in proving that Jane resistance is more powerful than the power that lies in society everywhere. This study adopts the textual analysis of the novel and has much scope to find out the impact of resistance in the character of Jane Eyre from a Foucauldian point of views.

Friday, February 14, 2025

Friday, February 14, 2025 11:18 am by Cristina in , , ,    No comments
It's Valentine's Day so it's all sites sharing love quotes, etc. Too many and too similar (and too boring, to be honest) to mention them all. The Irish Times has several writers pick their favourite love poems and writer Edel Coffey says,
As a teenager, before I was ever in love, I basked in the melodrama of Charlotte Bronte’s intense love poems, but since experiencing melodrama in actual love, I find I now prefer the more reserved professions of Sir Thomas Wyatt, who wrote some of the first sonnets in the English language. (Martin Doyle)
The Lafyette lists 'Songs for all types of love this Valentine’s Day' including
“Wuthering Heights” by Kate Bush 
If you’re either a fan of 19th-century novels or looking to feel angsty this Valentine’s Day, Kate Bush’s 1978 song “Wuthering Heights” is the one for you. The song is based on Emily Brontë’s novel “Wuthering Heights” and takes inspiration from the intense, emotional and, frankly, dark relationship between the novel’s central characters Cathy and Heathcliff. In the song, Bush wails, “Heathcliff, it’s me, I’m Cathy/I’ve come home, I’m so cold/Let me in your window.” Further in the song, she continues, “I’m coming back love/cruel Heathcliff/My one dream, my only master.” These lyrics highlight melodramatic, complicated relationships filled with yearning, and if you’re into that sort of thing, give this song a listen. (Natalia Ferruggia)
The Tab wonders 'Which University of Sheffield courses have the most romantic energy?' and one of the contestants is
English Literature – The Walking Love Letters
Starting off strong, you’d imagine English students are effortlessly poetic, their minds shaped by a lifetime of delusional, lovey-dovey novels. Hopeless romantics at heart, they move through life as if they’re living in their own tragic love story.
You’ll find them with a battered copy of Pride and Prejudice in their tote bag, ready to quote poetry at a moment’s notice. They’ll write you a love letter so heart-wrenching it could make even the coldest soul weep, all while brooding over a black coffee and passionately debating whether Wuthering Heights is a love story or just deeply unhinged. (Ellie Ashton)
And finally, unrelated to the day, Helen Fielding answers bookish questions for Elle.
The book that... [...] ...I read in one sitting; it was that good:
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys. It’s a prequel to Jane Eyre, set in the Caribbean. Couldn’t put it down. (Riza Cruz)
12:43 am by M. in ,    No comments
Brother Brontë is a dystopian novel that plays with the Brontë legacy in a curious way:
A Novel
Fernando A. Flores
MCD Books
ISBN: 9780374604165
February 2025

The year is 2038, and the formerly bustling town of Three Rivers, Texas, is a surreal wasteland. Under the authoritarian thumb of its tech industrialist mayor, Pablo Henry Crick, the town has outlawed reading and forced most of its mothers to work as indentured laborers at the Big Tex Fish Cannery, which poisons the atmosphere and lines Crick’s pockets.
Scraping by in this godforsaken landscape are best friends Prosperina and Neftalí—the latter of whom, one of the town’s last literate citizens, hides and reads the books of the mysterious renegade author Jazzmin Monelle Rivas, whose last novel, Brother Brontë, is finally in Neftalí’s possession. But after a series of increasingly violent atrocities committed by Crick’s forces, Neftalí and Prosperina, with the help of a wounded bengal tigress, three scheming triplets, and an underground network of rebel tías, rise up to reclaim their city—and in the process, unlock Rivas’s connection to Three Rivers itself.
An adventure that only the acclaimed Fernando A. Flores could dream up, Brother Brontë is a mordant, gonzo romp through a ruined world that, in its dysfunction, tyranny, and disparity, nonetheless feels uncannily like our own. With his most ambitious book yet, Flores once again bends what fiction can do, in the process crafting a moving and unforgettable story of perseverance.
In the novel the author weaves a metafictional narrative that reimagines the Brontë legacy through the lens of literary conspiracy. Central to the story is a book within the book, Brother Brontë, written by Jazzmin Monelle Rivas, which challenges traditional accounts of authorship by suggesting that Branwell Brontë, rather than his sisters, was the true genius behind Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.
This idea is explored through the setting of Our Brother Branwell Academy for Girls, a mysterious boarding school where students slowly uncover the supposed truth about Branwell’s role in literature. Twin protagonists, symbolically named Pride and Prejudice, navigate this institution, questioning literary history and encountering figures who debate the authenticity of the Brontë sisters' authorship. One character, Gia, even doubts their existence altogether, while another, Neftalí, acknowledges them as real but explains how the novel within the novel reshapes their legacy to place Branwell at the center.

Thursday, February 13, 2025

Thursday, February 13, 2025 7:40 am by Cristina in , , ,    No comments
LitHub shares part of the conversation writer Olivia Laing had with Michael Kelleher for the Windham-Campbell Prizes Podcast in which she mentions Villette.
Olivia Laing: She [Lucy Snow[e]] has this very strange way of telling you things where she tells you a fantasy and then she says, “you can believe that.” And you go, “Oh, okay, Lucy. So it wasn’t like that at all, but you’re not gonna let me know.” She forces you to become a detective. And I think the reason I love this book, one of the many reasons, is it forces you to be a very active reader. You have to, all the time, weigh up everything everyone tells you, everything she tells you, and work out whether it’s true or not.
A columnist from Brainerd Dispatch recommends some of her favourite classic love stories.
I do, however, have to credit my college English class with connecting me to one of my all-time favorite classics, “Jane Eyre.” Everything about the novel drew me in — the characters, the gothic setting, the unpredictable twists and turns. I can still vividly remember my heart thumping fast as I neared the end and worried about what was in store for our hero and heroine. [...]
‘Jane Eyre’ by Charlotte Bronte (1847)
I couldn’t compile a list of my favorite love stories without mentioning Jane Eyre and Mr. Edward Rochester. Two more opposite people can’t be found — her poverty and his wealth, her sheltered life compared with his adventures abroad, her youth paired with his maturity. They come from different worlds, but their lives collide in a shower of sparks.
Jane’s an orphan, having grown up first with her neglectful, abusive aunt and cousins and then under harsh conditions at Lowood School for Girls. When she decides to embark out on her own, Jane finds herself a job as governess at Thornfield Hall, teaching Mr. Rochester’s ward, Adele. She soon becomes enraptured with the moody master of the house but isn’t prepared for the sharp turns her life is about to take.
It’s not until adulthood that Jane finds her true place in the world, among those who love her unconditionally. (Theresa Bourke)
The Telegraph and Argus reports that the public toilets in Haworth Central Park have been refurbished.
A new anthology book with scholar approaches to the life and work of Anne Brontë:
Edited by Taten Shirley
Vernon Press
ISBN: 979-8-8819-0124-0
February 2025

The main goal of this anthology is to aid Brontë scholars, along with undergraduate and graduate students alike, in their research of Anne Brontë, specifically in regards to the question of her artistry in her own life and the theme of artistry in her novel, 'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall', and her poetry. While there have been numerous publications on the Brontë sisters, there is the least amount of scholarship on Anne. Literary criticism of Anne is usually included within commentary on her sisters as a whole, and Anne is always discussed the least in the works. There are few, if any, anthologies on Anne’s writing, especially not one that focuses on artistry specifically. This anthology seeks to reduce the disparity of scholarship on Anne compared to her sisters.


The chapters all focus on artistry in some aspect of her life or her writing. The first chapter focuses on Anne’s poetry and how it can be viewed as a therapeutic for her homesickness while at Thorp Green. Chapter two examines the ways in which Anne Brontë demonstrates that Agnes Grey’s pedagogic craft is one steeped in virtue but punctuated by limited authority, thus stressing the inherently artistic nature of education as aesthetic expression that ultimately remains subordinate to the power of individual autonomy. The third chapter examines Helen Huntingdon through the medieval lens of chivalric domestic violence. Chapter four discusses how Anne’s artistry impacted the characters she wrote, illustrating how Helen’s career as an artist relies on the commercial prospects that painting permits to investigate the problems and disagreements that occur when a woman endeavors to construct “a room of one’s own” outside the conventional societal circumstances. The fifth chapter explores how Brontë traces Helen Huntingdon’s moral and emotional development through her art and how characters of both genders interact with that art and how the acts of production and interpretation serve as an important dimension of her social critique and refusal to conform to gendered expectations of her own art. Then the sixth chapter examines Victorian women’s artistic skills and their modest craft of sketching imaginary kingdoms and painting realistic landscapes and (self-)portraits in Anne Brontë’s 'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall' (1848) and in Charlotte Brontë’s 'Jane Eyre' (1847), as the equivalents of unprofessional female writings expected in the nineteenth century. The seventh chapter explores the use of art as a means of escape from an unvirtuous marriage in 'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.' Lastly, the eighth chapter takes a closer look at why exactly Anne is the least-known sister by contrasting the supernatural in Charlotte’s 'Jane Eyre' to the realism in Anne’s 'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.'  

Table of contents
Chapter 1: A Study of the Thorp Green Poems of Anne Brontë: Poetic Artistry as a Cure for Her Nostalgia
Yağmur Sönmez-Demir, Çankaya University, Turkey
Chapter 2: The Art of Education in Agnes Grey: Promise and Limitation
Andrew R. Jacobs, Faulkner University
Chapter 3: Chivalric Domestic Violence: The Radical Critique in Wuthering Heights, Shirley, and Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Samantha Crain, University of Minnesota
Chapter 4: The Commercialization of Absent Art in Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
K. Subramanyam, Shri Vaishnav Vidyapeeth Vishwavidyalaya, Indore, India
Chapter 5: Artistry and Privacy in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Katie Smith, Independent scholar
Chapter 6: Women Artists and their Crafts in Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre
Francisco José Cortés Vieco, Complutense University of Madrid, Spain
Chapter 7: A Virtuous Passion: The Use of Art as a Means of Escape in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Savannah Dockins, Faulkner University
Chapter 8: Rejecting Realism: Charlotte’s Exclusion of Anne
Taten Shirley, Faulkner University

Wednesday, February 12, 2025

Wednesday, February 12, 2025 7:25 am by Cristina in ,    No comments
The Irish Times features composer Ailís Ní Ríain.
Calling Mutely through Lipless Mouth took its title from The Glass Essay by the Canadian poet, essayist and translator Anne Carson.
“I was rereading it when my mother was dying in August 2022, after six weeks in hospital. [...]
This is the passage I read the night of my mom’s passing: ‘It is a hard wind slanting from the north. / Long flaps and shreds of flesh rip off the woman’s body and lift / and blow away on the wind, leaving / an exposed column of nerve and blood and muscle / calling mutely through lipless mouth. / It pains me to record this, / I am not a melodramatic person. / But soul is “hewn in a wild workshop” / as Charlotte Brontë says of Wuthering Heights.’” (Michael Dervan)
Crónica (Mexico) recommends 5 books to fall in love with and one of them is Wuthering Heights.
Iraqi Brontë scholars in action:
Asst. Lect. Mohammed Atta Salman, Wassit University/College of Arts/ Department of Translation
مجلة واسط للعلوم الانسانية, 21 (Wasit Journal for Human Sciences) (1/Pt1), 852-836.

The research includes a literary analysis of the novel Wuthering Heights by the English writer Emily Brontë, where the details and various human feelings, difficulties and conflicts that the characters went through. In this story, the author narrates in this novel, a mix of reality and imagination for the characters from the arrival of Heathcliff until his death in Wuthering Heights. The characters witnessed all the horrors, slavery and its suffering, as the novel presented to us the lives of the characters from childhood until adulthood and then death, since Heathcliff’s arrival from Liverpool and his relationship with Catherine and Hindley, then moving on to the events of the love relationship between Heathcliff and Catherine, and  her decision to marry Edgar Linton to help Heathcliff to obtain freedom, as well as the lives of the characters of the second generation. This novel presents an extraordinary fate of Heathcliff and Catherine, who were in turn prisoners of an imperfect relationship between an adopted person and a girl from an aristocratic family. This study aims to analyze Emily Brontë's characters. The research deals with the different narrative stages in the novel. Which the writer used in narrating the novel. The research also focused on dealing with the phenomenon of mandatory, will, and freedom that Bronte dealt with, taking into account the opinions of Hegel  and Sartre.

Tuesday, February 11, 2025

Tuesday, February 11, 2025 7:22 am by Cristina in , , ,    No comments
Theatre Review North on the return of Northern Ballet's Jane Eyre:
Leeds-based Northern Ballet has celebrated "Brontë-land" both with David Nixon’s Wuthering Heights some years ago and also Jane Eyre – first seen in 2016 and toured over the following two years; a fascinating and in some ways unique creation by Cathy Marston.
And her Jane Eyre returns to the moors this spring, in a Northern Ballet national tour beginning in Leeds and visiting Nottingham, Sheffield, Sadler’s Wells in London and finally Norwich.
The full-length ballet, based on Charlotte Brontë’s novel, was nominated for a South Bank Sky Arts award in 2017, and features music both compiled from the works of Fanny Mendelssohn, her brother Felix and Schubert, and freshly composed, both tasks accomplished by the ever-inventive Philip Feeney. His composite score matches the 19th Century Romanticism of the story really well. There’s the same sense of pent-up passion within the constraints of politeness and convention, occasionally bursting through in mystery, horror and shock.
And Cathy Marston knows how to tell a story vividly, which fits perfectly with Northern Ballet’s tradition and expertise: her style is clearly classical in spirit but with freedom to borrow from other inspirations.
When I saw it before I particularly liked the way, to express Jane’s intelligence as she verbally spars with that of Rochester, she literally trips him up – and he her, now and again – in a recurring visual motif. And an interpretation of what (in the book) are mysterious unexplained noises from Bertha in the attic – not very practical to reproduce when the music is important – is achieved by showing a dancer in silhouette.
This ballet began as one for smaller theatres, with modest staging requirements, and Northern Ballet, which has performed to recorded music in some recent programmes, is going back to the original score with its need for a small number of live players. 
The company's artistic director, Federico Bonelli, said of the work: “What do we all love about Jane Eyre? Her resilience, determination and steadfast knowledge of who she is as she navigates a life filled with turmoil. 
"This story is perfect to be told through ballet … there is so much for any dancer to work with, to encapsulate the layered characters and narrative created by Charlotte Brontë, and even more for an audience member to enjoy.” (Robert Beale)
Book Riot has some Romantic Horror recommendations for Valentine’s Day and introducing the genre claims that,
Borrowing the claustrophobic atmosphere, use of supernatural elements, feeling of dread, and themes of morality and desire, romantic horror books fit in with Jane Eyre and Dracula. (Courtney Rodgers)
PBS lists '7 Things Yorkshire has Shared with the World' and the Brontë sisters are up there with Yorkshire pudding.
The Brontë Sisters
The Brontë sisters were literary rock stars who shook up 19th century fiction from their home in Haworth. Trailblazer Charlotte gave us Jane Eyre, the ultimate DIY heroine who knows her worth and fights for it. Emily’s Wuthering Heights with its stormy romance between Heathcliff and Cathy remains one of the greatest Gothic novels ever written. And Anne? She was tackling social inequities with The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Together, the Brontës flipped the script on how women were portrayed in literature.
12:40 am by M. in , ,    No comments

A new paper published a few days ago:

The problems of female emancipation and the peculiarities of the creation of a female character in the novels of Ch. Brontë “Jane Eyre” and G. Eliot The Mill on the Floss

Zulfizar Khudoyberdievna Saidova, Nasriyeva Mahliyo Iskandar qizi. Fñinders Univeristy
Vol. 3 No. 2 (2025): American Journal of Education and Learning

This article explores the problems of female emancipation and the peculiarities of the creation of female characters in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss. While Jane Eyre presents a heroine who seeks independence, self-respect, and economic freedom, The Mill on the Floss portrays Maggie Tulliver as a woman constrained by social and familial expectations. A comparative analysis of these two novels highlights the authors’ feminist perspectives and critiques of 19th-century gender inequality. The study examines the role of education, economic independence, and moral strength in shaping these female protagonists and their struggles for autonomy.

Monday, February 10, 2025

Monday, February 10, 2025 7:29 am by Cristina in    No comments
Ahead of Valentine's Day, Luxembourg Times recommends 'Romantic reads for a date with yourself' including
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
Another classic and Emily Brontë’s only novel, the story follows Heathcliff as he tries to seek revenge for being wronged by those closest to him and kept away from his only love, Catherine Earnshaw. (Natalia Pikna)
A couple of February 8th events in the Brontë story on AnneBrontë.org.
1:00 am by M. in ,    No comments
This ebook is the result of the work carried out by the students enrolled in the elective course ‘Body and Gender in Narrative Discourse’ of the MA in English Studies: Linguistic, Literary and Sociocultural Perspectives of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, during the Winter-Spring semester of the academic year 2024-25.
Edited by Sara Martín
Published by Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Filologia Anglesa i de Germanística
2025

Includes the chapter Jane Eyre: Caught in a Bad Romance  by Ivette Constans Renco. It's Jane Eyre 2006, the one they discuss.

Sunday, February 09, 2025

Sunday, February 09, 2025 11:20 am by M. in , , , , , , ,    No comments
 The Gothic Book Club at The Devonsville Press is reading Wuthering Heights:
One week into February’s pick and the general consensus would indicate that no matter how often you read Wuthering Heights, you never read the same book twice.
For some of us following along with the Gothic Book Club, it’s the first time they have experienced it since high school or early adulthood. Many are coming back to it after years, or even decades. Others are picking it up for the first time.
Perhaps some arrived here because they loved Jane Eyre (written by Emily’s sister Charlotte), or felt they wanted to tackle an oft-mentioned classic. Whatever the reason, the only certainty is that this book contains surprises and ever-changing forms.
Age, experience, mood and perspective will inevitably alter your perception of any work of art, but there’s something so indeterminate when it comes to Wuthering Heights. Alliances and preferences shift around the story at breakneck speed, playing upon the complexities of human emotion. Sometimes, when you read an author from this era, you get a sense of character. Charles Dickens, for example, is wonderful at creating strong, memorable characters. In Emily Brontë's work, however, it feels more like we’re getting to know people. (Colin J.McCracken)
The Telegraph & Argus announces the return of the Northern Ballet's production of Jane Eyre to the stages, which will be touring the UK next March.
This spring, Northern Ballet is bringing its critically acclaimed production of Jane Eyre back to the stage, with heart-stirring choreography and live music. Audiences are invited to join the governess on “a journey of resilience, romance and redemption”. (...)
Originally premièred by Northern Ballet in 2016, and nominated for a South Bank Sky Arts Award in 2017, Jane Eyre is choreographed by internationally acclaimed British dance maker Cathy Marston, whose recent credits include Snowblind for Atlanta Ballet and The Cellist for Ballet Zürich.
The show is set to a score of original compositions and existing work compiled and arranged by composer Philip Feeney. Sets and costumes are designed by Patrick Kinmonth and lighting is designed by Alastair West, whose recent credits include Northern Ballet’s Casanova.
Says Cathy Marston: “The Brontës’ stories are inspiring to translate into dance because of their intense emotional journeys for the protagonists, the backdrop of landscape and elemental forces that seem to amplify these emotions, and in the case of Jane Eyre particularly, the range of wonderful soloist roles that add texture, depth, and warmth to the central narrative.”
Federico Bonelli, Artistic Director at Northern Ballet adds: “What do we all love about Jane Eyre? Her resilience, determination and steadfast knowledge of who she is as she navigates a life filled with turmoil.
“Combined with her love story with Mr Rochester, this story is perfect to be told through ballet, and in our Jane Eyre the dancing, sets, costumes and music fully immerse you in Jane’s life.
“There is so much for any dancer to work with to encapsulate the layered characters and narrative created by Charlotte Brontë and even more for an audience member to enjoy in this beautiful retelling by Cathy Marston.” (Emma Clayton) 
The presentation of the Altuzarra 2025 fall fashion collection came with an unexpected gift, as we read in Fashionista and The Impression:
In what could've been a dark prelude to Valentine's Day, the designer gifted showgoers Emily Brontë's tragically romantic novel "Wuthering Heights."
Fall 2025, revealed Saturday morning in an all-white (even the carpet) room at the Woolworth Building in lower Manhattan, is a prime example of this. This season's collection-relevant book, gifted to each guest, was Emily Brontë's tragically romantic novel "Wuthering Heights" — it felt like Altuzarra might be offering a rather dark prelude to Valentine's Day. But there's ultimately something inspiring about the collection and the story — or, more accurately, the woman — behind it.
"This season, the focus shifts from narrative to a singular, compelling character — a woman who wears her history as armor, unafraid to show her scars," Altuzarra wrote in the show notes. "This collection is a map of the woman's loves and losses." She's described as "unapologetic" and "fearless," but still vulnerable, and her (very chic) wardrobe reflects that. (Dhani Mau)

While Altuzarra first built his business on dresses, the post-covid era has seen him do great work to expand the brand into other categories. The cold and desolate beauty of the Yorkshire moors, where Brontë herself lived in relative seclusion and where her novel unfolds, offered a unique space to explore outerwear and knitwear. Coats with dramatically sweeping shawl or cape structures, fair isle knits, and angular fur-lined jackets all seemed perfect for wandering among the heather at dusk, lamenting a lost love. There were other smart nods to the history and geography of Brontë’s world as well, like the lacy cuffs and high collars that updated aristocratic styles or the somber and sober garb the Brontë’s clergyman father would have worn. (Mark Wittmer)
The Sunday Times discusses the recent BBC Radio 4 program How Boarding Schools Shaped Britain:
  Keir Starmer’s cabinet is almost entirely state educated. State sixth forms are sending record numbers to Oxbridge and Russell Group universities. Also, importantly, boarding schools have been getting some of their worst PR since the consumptive death of Helen Burns in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre or the publication of Dickens’s Nicholas Nickleby. (Patricia Nicol)
The Guardian publishes an obituary of the teacher and literary biographer Catherine Peters who was
An avid and precocious reader herself, she had read Jane Eyre by the age of eight. (Matthew Barton)
The Sunday Post (Sri Lanka) interviews the author Kate Mosse:
The single author who most touched Kate was Emily Brontë with her bleak and haunting Yorkshire moors in The Wuthering Heights. “The main character was the landscape,” says Kate and that’s how she herself writes –  everything beginning with the place. (Yomal Senerath-Yapa)
Forbes lists the best Celine Dion's songs:
 "It’s All Coming Back to Me Now" (1996)
Celine’s 1996 single “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now” has an interesting story behind it. It was written by Jim Steinman, the collaborator behind some of Meatloaf’s biggest hits. In fact, Steinman ended up going to court to prevent Meatloaf from recording it, believing it was better suited for a female. (Meatloaf did end up recording the song a decade later.) Steinman said the song was inspired by Wuthering Heights and his goal was to write the “most passionate, most romantic song he could create.” (Pam Windsor)
Associated Press also interviews Nora Roberts:
 Sophia Rosenbaum: Do you have a favorite book of all time?
S.R.: “To Kill a Mockingbird” is probably the most perfect novel I remember. I love “Catch-22.” And “Jane Eyre.
ED (Chile) recommends Emily Brontë's poetry as a summer reading:
 Poesía completa, de Emily Brontë
“Emily Brontë no solo fue una gran novelista, sino también una poeta brillante. Su Poesía completa fue editada por Alba Editorial en una hermosa y cuidada edición bilingüe. 
Estos poemas te llevan a un mundo de paisajes salvajes, emociones intensas y reflexiones profundas sobre la vida, la muerte y la naturaleza. Su lenguaje es rico y evocador, en sus versos se siente la misma fuerza indómita que encontramos en Cumbres Borrascosas. Es un libro que conecta con el alma, ideal para quienes buscan palabras que resuenen con lo sublime y lo eterno”. (Valentina De Aguirre) (Translation)
 A Brontë-related question in yesterday's Vox Crossword.

New covers for classics translated into Spanish:
Emily Brontë
Translated by Rafael Santervás Santamarta
Cover by Sandra Rilova
Austral Editorial - Austral Mínima
ISBN:  978-84-08-29205-0
November 2024
Diario de Burgos (Spain) gives further information:
Por su formato y, sobre todo, por la explosión de color de sus portadas, Austral Mínima, la nueva colección de clásicos del veterano sello, destaca entre la marea de ejemplares de las librerías. La responsable de ese vibrante estallido es la ilustradora burgalesa Sandra Rilova, habitual en el diseño editorial nacional y
también internacional. (Almudena Sanz) (Translation)

Saturday, February 08, 2025

Saturday, February 08, 2025 11:03 am by Cristina in , , , , ,    No comments
The Saturday Paper is not much of a fan of Emma Rice's Wuthering Heights.
Anyone familiar with the source material – Emily Brontë’s iconic, heart-rending Gothic novel of the same name – could be forgiven for feeling a little confused. But the apron-wearing Hareton (Matthew Churcher), smiling at the audience like a cross between Martha Stewart and a Mills & Boon cover model, sums up the vibe of Rice’s ironic, tongue-in-cheek, folk-rock adaptation. [...]
Horrified, Rice wrote her Wuthering Heights in the style of a Greek tragedy, as a means of exploring the intergenerational consequences of abuse and xenophobia. In reality though, the production can’t escape its own self-aware humour and suffers from something of an identity crisis. It might as well be an ironic, thoroughly modern comedy right from the prologue when the hapless Mr Lockwood (the superb Sam Archer), in a coat-flapping display of slapstick, slams into Heathcliff’s front door.
The production is self-referential even in how it evokes its setting. Birds and butterflies are made of fluttering books on sticks, while the Wuthering Heights farmhouse is represented by a flat, front door and a window on castors (Vicki Mortimer’s set design). There is a hilarious literal depiction of the moor’s “screaming winds”. The Yorkshire Moors themselves are personified as a singing, dancing Greek chorus led by Nandi Bhebhe, wearing a brambly headdress and functioning as a sort of Mother Earth-meets-Oprah voice of conscience. She clucks consolingly as she dresses Heathcliff for Christmas, waving away his hesitations with a kindly wriggle of her patchwork bustle skirt (Mortimer’s costuming), reminding him that he must prove himself.
The chorus complains that there are too many characters with similar-sounding names, and other cast members helpfully walk on with chalkboards to clarify. The chalkboards make frequent reappearances, including when the town physician, Dr Kenneth (the delightful T. J. Holmes, also doubling as the band’s cellist), prances on stage in a top hat and rubber gloves to explain the spate of recent deaths among the main characters.
The childhood versions of Heathcliff, Hindley and Catherine are rendered as puppets (puppetry directed by John Leader), before growing into their adult human selves. There are no brooding eyes or pensive sighs from Stephanie Hockley’s energised, devilish Catherine. She’s a wild-haired, pouting teenager tottering around in platform heels, shrieking and grimacing like a poltergeist. In the production’s feted “drop mic” moment, an industrial floor fan is conspicuously placed in front of her so that she can wail into a microphone, hair blowing out, rockstar-style. It’s hard to understand exactly what Heathcliff sees in this Catherine, but perhaps it underscores the point of their lonely co-dependency.
The dandyish siblings Isabella Linton (Rebecca Collingwood) and her brother, Edgar (Archer again), are highlights, capering about in a froth of pink bows and lace. They don’t walk or dance normally like the rest of the cast but traverse the stage by twirling and leaping in an endless foppish ballet. Archer transitions gracefully between the whimsical humour of his character’s early scenes and the grieving, dying father that Edgar later becomes. Collingwood also takes on the role of Isabella’s son, the limp Little Linton, as a pants role. A talented comic artist, Collingwood has some of the best lines in the show: as Isabella she giggles, “I like to slide down the banister – because it tickles my tuppence!” and as Little Linton she harrumphs, “It’s pyjama time!”
As well as being puppetry director, Leader also stars as Heathcliff. A dark, menacing presence, out of all the cast he is the only character bereft of whimsy, tapping into the toxic cruelty so prevalent in Brontë’s novel. Heathcliff is also a vehicle for Rice’s message on racism: he has a strong Caribbean accent and prominent dreadlocks, and rages that his lot in life would be different if he’d been born with straight hair and fair skin. “Go back where you came from,” sneers Hindley (Churcher again) at Heathcliff, before striking him in the face.
It’s not the first time Heathcliff has been multiracially cast in a “race-lift” version of Wuthering Heights: see, for example, Andrea Arnold’s 2011 film version, starring James Howson as cinema’s first black Heathcliff.
Brontë’s descriptions of Heathcliff were purposely ambiguous. He was a “dark-skinned gypsy in aspect and a little lascar”, she wrote, referring to the older English word for sailors from India or South-East Asia. But the treatment of racism in Rice’s production takes the vague otherness of Brontë’s Heathcliff – subtle enough to have him adopted and loved by Mr Earnshaw but ambiguous enough to unsettle Yorkshire society – and repaints it in a thoroughly modern and somewhat ham-fisted take. Staking most of the exploration of racism in Leader’s accent and a few stock lines, it works at a superficial level. But this production steers clear of the deeper, gut-wrenching complexities of racism – whether in Brontë’s day or now – and Rice’s well-intentioned message begins to feel as two-dimensional as the cut-out set of Heathcliff’s front door.
Ultimately, as clever as the musical’s whimsy is, it causes the production to become tonally disjointed, which is made worse by a trying three-hour run time. There is only so much folk-rock (Ian Ross’s composition and songs, which seem strangely indistinguishable from each other) and ironic self-aware jokes the production can manage before it undermines the exploration into intergenerational trauma and racism that Rice intended. (Chantal Nguyen)
Wuthering Heights is one of '12 of the Most Unforgettable Books About Doomed Romances' according to Mental Floss.
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (1847)
This is the sole novel by Emily Brontë, one of a remarkably talented trio of siblings alongside sisters Charlotte and Anne. Wuthering Heights contains all the classic elements of the doomed romance novel: forbidden love, awful misunderstandings, jealousy, revenge, and tragedy. It was initially published under the pseudonym Ellis Bell and caused quite a storm amongst contemporary critics thanks to the brutal actions and perceived inhumanity of its protagonists, Cathy and Heathcliff. Yet the strange and dark charm of the book was evident from the start, and it’s gone on to become one of the most revered tragic love stories of all time. Plus, there’s the little matter of Kate Bush’s enduring song and accompanying video. (Chris Wheatley)
According to The Bookseller
Layne Fargo’s The Favourites (Vintage), a reimagining of Wuthering Heights set in the world of professional ice dance, was also picked by [TikToker] Alice as one of the most popular new additions to the romance genre. Speaking on sports romances in an interview with The Bookseller, Fargo said: “To be an elite athlete you have to be so driven, so disciplined, so ambitious, and I think, in a lot of cases, there’s not really room for love or relationships. I see this a lot in sports romances where it’s like: ‘I can’t get involved with this person right now because I’m trying to make it to the Olympics, I’m trying to win the championship or whatever.’ So, that creates conflict right away.” (Katie Fraser)
The Atlantic features two memoirs about 'illness realism'.
Illness and literature have frequently been bedfellows. Tuberculosis, for example, shortened the life and influenced the work of authors as varied as Robert Louis Stevenson, Franz Kafka, and the Brontë sisters. (Boris Kachka)
A contributor to The Pitt News discusses reading classic novels.
In my junior year of high school, I made a far-too-long list of books I wanted to read before graduating. About 90% of the books on that list were classic novels written in the 19th century. I figured that reading as many books as I possibly could from authors like Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, Charles Dickens and Leo Tolstoy would be well worth my time because it would mean I’d read a lot of “impressive” books. Honestly, I think my obsession with watching “Gilmore Girls” was probably a major reason why I was thinking that way. I figured that reading a large number of classic novels would make me appear as well read and school smart as Rory Gilmore.
I started with “Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott, then moved on to Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre.” I was relatively surprised by how much I enjoyed each of these books because I went into them assuming they would have boring plots and nearly impossible-to-understand language. Originally, when I thought about women in the 19th century, I imagined them to be people who never or rarely ever tried to defy societal expectations, especially those placed upon them by men. Reading stories about female characters in the 19th century written by women in the 19th century showed me how independent many women were at this time, despite the expectation that women prioritize marriage and motherhood over anything else. (Evin Verburgge)
A contributor to Gulf News claims that she's a 'love-agnostic'.
While my peers swooned over Danielle Steele’s passionate heroes, I was buried in crime fiction, far more invested in solving whodunnits than in romantic entanglements. While they dreamt of a brooding Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice or a tormented Mr. Rochester from Jane Eyre, I admired the razor-sharp intellect of Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot and the cool, calculated moves of Mark Girland from James Hadley Chase’s thrillers. Looking back, that should have been a warning sign — but at the time, I was too engrossed in tracking fictional murderers to notice. (Krita Coelho)
We hope that's tongue-in-cheek because otherwise it's plain silly. It would amount to saying that people who read true crime are would-be murderers.

Another spot that needs saving from developers, as told by The Yorkshire Post:
A farmer and environmental campaigner has said a community’s drive to buy agricultural land on the edge of a village to prevent a potential housing development could become a template replicated across the country.
Farmer and Ouseburn division councillor Arnold Warneken was speaking after a public meeting at Great Ouseburn Village Hall near Boroughbridge heard a scheme backed by Dame Judi Dench to buy 20-acre Town End Field only had until February 28 to secure £300,000 to buy the land.
The beauty spot inspired a drawing by writer Anne Brontë when she worked as a governess for a family nearby and has attracted many visitors, including the father [somehow we don't think that Dame Judi Dench's father is still living] and brother of Dame Judi, who said the green space was "well worth saving". (Stuart Minting
My Plain Jane by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, & Jodi Meadows has been translated into Spanish:
Mi pobre Jane
Brodi Ashton, Jodi Meadows, Cynthia Hand
MundoPuck
ISBN: 9788410239272

Una versión fantástica, romántica, cómica y totalmente (en realidad, no) fiel de Jane Eyre.
Quizá creas que conoces la historia. Después de una infancia miserable, la huérfana Jane Eyre se convierte en institutriz en Thornfield Hall. Allí, conoce a un tal señor Rochester, sombrío y taciturno. A pesar de la significativa diferencia de edad (puaj) y el temperamento inestable (doble puaj) de él, se enamoran... y, lector, acaban juntos.
JANE (su mejor amiga es un fantasma) ha soportado años de penurias y miseria, y está lista para una nueva vida como institutriz en Thornfield Hall. Es bastante pobre. Es muy del montón. Además, tiene un gusto terrible en lo que a hombres se refiere.
CHARLOTTE (intenta decirle que no) aspira a ser escritora (sí, es esa Charlotte). Y está decidida a narrar la historia de su amiga Jane, aunque eso signifique imponer su presencia en la cacería de fantasmas más épica a este lado de las Cumbres Borrascosas.
ALEXANDER (un cazafantasmas excepcional) es un agente de la Sociedad para la Reubicación de Espíritus Descarriados. Está a punto de descubrir que algo muy perturbador sucede en un pequeño lugar llamado Thornfield...
LECTOR, va a haber asesinatos, caos, conspiraciones y, por supuesto, romance. Prepárate para una aventura de proporciones góticas, donde no todo es lo que parece y en la que un caballero, el señor Rochester, esconde algo más que esqueletos en su armario.

Via El Períódico (Spain).